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Thursday, 13 July 2017

Wonder Weapons

Colonel Kurt Stressner was captured by the Red Army on January 12th, 1945. His interrogation deals with many interesting topics, but one section is probably the most interesting:

"Presence of new weapons and chemical substances

I don't know anything about new weapons, either through official channels or personally. It's possible to redesign the V-2 so that it could be used to strike targets on the front lines precisely. The V-1 is shaped like a plane and is aimed at the target along a horizontal trajectory, and hits the target very imprecisely. They say that it hits 2-3 km from the target. The V-2 has a vertical trajectory and hits 500-1000 m from the target. Time consuming calculations are required. The V-2 can strike tall objects in an area 3-4 square kilometers in size. Both of these weapons can only be used against cities, that is why they cannot be used on the Eastern Front. They say that there is also a type of weapon being developed that is based on decay of atoms. This kind of weapon is desirable, but unlikely.

The use of chemical weapons on German soil is impossible due to the small spaces on which the battles take place."